13. Hepatitis A - What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

So where are we? Well, this is a primary
prevention disease. There are no chronic infections, so those
secondary and tertiary terms don't count in terms of this disease, as
part of the viral hepatitis spectrum. I think we are doing pretty well in terms of
the children in the higher rate states - I put "OK" up there, we
actually don't have good data in terms of vaccination coverage, but
some of the surveys that have been done have shown that we are doing
pretty well, but we need to keep after it. In special populations we have done very
well, as I have shown with the American Indian/Alaskan native
population. And should we move as the advisory committee
on immunization practices suggested three-four years ago, in their
1999 recommendations - that we go to vaccinating all children, that
this become a universal vaccine - well, there were some technical issues, and
hopefully soon, at least we will have the technical issues taken care
of in terms of an immunization schedule, and then the issue is, will
we have our recommendation. But with adults, and I have tried to show
you the data, we have done a very poor job. And you are going to see
that adult immunization, for all diseases that go across the whole age
spectrum, we have not done well with adults. So there is a gap and this is something we
need to begin to address.